If everyone on Fluther speaks with one voice, do you listen?

If the answering body is diverse enough, then yes. After a while we get to know how certain people feel and react to different things, if a single theme permeates all the posts from such a diverse group, I listen carefully.
I don’t recall such a thing happening on a question of mine, but I have seen a number of such, and when the collective comes together, it’s telling.

I remember it happening on one of my questions and I was totally surprised. It was nothing earth shattering. I had sent my lawn guy a check for a Christmas tip. After about 4 weeks he hadn’t cashed it. My question was, should I contact him about it. Every single person on that question said not to contact him.
I had actually already decided to and just wanted validation.
I went with the voice of Fluther and did not contact him. He cashed it that week.
In my 10 years on Fluther, very seldom do we ever all agree on anything. And when we do, it is usually the right way to go, the right answer, or everyone had the same insight the poster did not have.

I remember a question I asked quite a few years ago about a situation involving a very dear friend and her abusive ex. Every voice on the thread except one told me it was none of my business. They were all dead wrong. Absolutely unequivocally wrong. I can state with authority that the vast majority of members of Fluther are grossly ignorant regarding domestic abuse.

I think it does behoove us to re-think but that does not mean we/ the OP, are wrong.

@KNOWITALL Of course.

Usually.

I remember one notable exception. I participated in a thread in which the OP was a woman in tech who had received sexist comments from another woman in her workplace. The vast majority of people, including lots of women, said to brush off her comments and that she didn’t have grounds to feel offended. I would have gone to HR in her situation. That thread made me feel like I was taking crazy pills. I still think OP and I were right.

The rare occasions for universal concurrence seem unfortunately to be around the illness or death of one of us.

It does cause me to pause, and take in the chorus of opinions that are singing as one. My experience with this is there usually still is one or two jellies who disagree with the group. When that happens I consider the perspectives of who is saying what.

Fairly recently I did a Q about telling children of alcoholics not to drink. Most jellies freaked out telling me it’s a horrible idea. Almost all who were upset by the idea were children of alcoholics, or had family members who were alcoholics, or tended to be very sensitive (I’m not saying they are wrong to be sensitive) about family dysfunction. So, do they know best? Or, is worrying about feelings maybe not really helping these children in the end?

The Q did change my mind a little on the topic after hearing so many jellies who argued the same point, but I will say that on that Q the jellies had so much trouble actually reading what I wrote, so busy accusing me of being horrible and accusing me of something I explicitly said I hadn’t done, and I wrote it more than once, that it diminished for me some of what they were saying. It reinforced what I was thinking. The Q probably will cause me to think twice though in a situation where I might have opportunity to say something to someone. I think twice anyway about things like that, but even more so after the Q.

There was at least one jelly who thought more like I did.

“I’d like to teach the world to si…”

I can think of another Q, which I won’t mention, where the single person willing to be blunt (many called the jelly mean) was ridiculed fiercely by many on the Q, and then a couple of months later the OP “on their own” wound up deciding that they should basically do exactly what the stand out jelly said. I was more of an observer on that Q, but it was again a high emotion situation. The majority of the jellies on the Q were inclined to be “supportive” while one, or just a couple, I don’t remember, were more harsh and advice driven in their comments.

Only if that voice speaks in backwards Latin.
Ave Satanas.

Sure I listen. At least, I try to.

I listen, but I still might not agree.

@JLeslie omfg, I’m so tired of people getting that situation wrong and spreading lies about it. That Jelly did not follow the advice of the dissenter. Just quit already.

@JLeslie “I can think of another Q, which I won’t mention”

You just did knowing well enough there are people here who are still involved. I don’t believe your intentions are ill but I do believe you are clueless concerning some social manners.

I always listen, but I don’t always agree or acquiesce.

No.

Okay, I’ll listen. But I will not conform just because of the mob.

@Caravanfan I don’t think anyone here would accuse you of following the mob.

@janbb lol. Perhaps not.